


Disillusioned

by hoosonja



Category: Ylvis
Genre: Clothes, Fans, Unhappiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosonja/pseuds/hoosonja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bård is tired of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disillusioned

**Author's Note:**

> This was a writing assignment for a writing group I'm part of, so it's a translated work. The prompt was "New Year". Any glitches and such are the result of poor translation :D

“Time to start with a clean slate.” A finger pressed the backspace and one by one the letters were wiped away the letters, leaving but an empty screen on their wake. “Time to turn over a new leaf.” _Damnit, how could it be this hard to write a single toast?_

Bård sighed and closed his laptop, pushing it away with a grimace. It was hard to be in the entertainment business and be funny all the time. People had certain kinds of expectations toward a comedian, and every time he left the house, he had to wear a comedian’s attire. God forbid if he had a bad day, he was tired or hungry. There was a constant expectation for him to appear happy, despite the fact he’d much rather give them all a finger, hit the bar and get senselessly drunk. He had even tried that a few times, but the sensational headlines on the yellow press and the tongue-lashings from the manager had put an end to that.

 _Prisoners on house arrest have more freedom than I do,_ he thought bitterly. _Nobody expects them to always be funny and wear nice clothes in public,_ he added in his mind as he looked down on the sweatpants that had seen their best days a while back and to the t-shirt that had barely legible text on it. He got up from his office chair and walked to the wardrobe, opening it with a shiver of disgust as he looked in. On the hangers there were shirts, each more fashionable than the one before it. There were also shelves that housed neat piles on hoodies, fleeces and cardigans. They were all carefully chosen and the colors matched perfectly, thanks to the professional shopper his manager had acquired.

 _Oh crap,_ Bård thought. _I suppose I have to wear some of those rags._ He ended up wearing a blue jeans shirt that complemented the color of his eyes and black, well-fitting jeans. On his feet he put the Hummel sneakers that had already become a kind of a trademark for him. He had utterly refused to let them go even when there was a deliberate attempt to cultivate his style. No matter what, he always wore the Hummels. It was a bit comical of course that he showed up on a red carpet wearing a Tiger of Sweden suit and black Hummels with white highlights, but nobody really made a big deal of it these days. In the beginnings of his career, on the other side of the turn of the millennium, he had always had Hummels, but that style (or the lack thereof) wasn’t something that was talked about that much. The sneakers were a remnant from his teenage years, a habit his brother had shaken years ago, but had stuck with him.

It didn’t seem to make him any less popular, quite the opposite in fact. Adoring teenage girls had even made fan blogs to celebrate his choices of clothing. The mere idea made him want to puke, why weren’t they fans of the person who actually did the shopping for him, he didn’t really have a say in the matter anyway. By the door Bård drew on a stylish leather coat and a scarf that was barely a scrap of fabric that didn’t make him warm, but “looked good.” He didn’t quite make it to the parking lot when the first fans were there. Obediently he posed for pictures and wrote some autographs before getting in his sporty red car.

Annoyed he revved out of the parking space and left the overjoyed fans coughing in the plume of exhaust. He almost made it to work before the next fan attack. He had stopped at the red lights, when a group of teenage girls that were crossing the road noticed him and broke into delighted squeals. All of them drew out their cells and started snapping pictures of him through the windscreen. Bård smiled a fake smile at them and waved. They didn’t even realise the lights had turned green before the other drivers started honking their horns and made them move away from the middle of the road and Bård could drive on. _Bloody hell,_ he thought. The things had taken a turn to the worse after the viral video, now he didn’t have to avoid just native fans but foreigners too, because his reputations had reached even the furthest corners of the globe.

“I need an effing vacation,” he said as the first thing to his brother when he got to work. 

“Join the club,” his stressed-looking brother replied. 

“How many times you were spotted on the way here?” Bård asked.

“Three times – and I was stopped every fucking time!”

A secretary brought the men an official-looking envelope, with a large Lionsgate logo printed on the top left-hand corner.

“Hey, what’s that?” Bård asked curiously.

“Well, let’s see,” Vegard said and carefully opened the envelope.

Bård would’ve ripped it open much quicker in his eagerness, but settled with waiting his brother to finish his job.

“It’s an invitation to LA to talk about our future prospects,” Vegard revealed.

“When can we leave?” was the instantaneous reaction from Bård. “I want to get the hell away, even for a little while!”

“I couldn’t agree with you more. Right away, I’d say!”

“I hope we can be at peace from the fans in the USA.”

“Yeah, sure. Haven’t you seen the “fanmap” we were given a while back? There are plenty of fans in California!”

”Oh fuck, I had already managed to forget all about that. I guess there’s nowhere we can go to avoid them.”

“We could always go to the cabin, they don’t know where it is.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Bård sighed.

Bård sat in the office he shared with Vegard and pulled out a laptop from his fashionable bag. He opened the draft for the toast. “Time to turn over a new leaf,” it said on the screen. Bård typed furiously for a bit and satisfied with the result saved his work.

The following night, on New Year’s eve, Bård sat on a dinner table with his friends. He clinked his fork on the wine glass to signify silence. 

“It was really hard for me to finish this speech, as usual.”

The people laughed a bit.

“But the contents came to me yesterday morning as I was on my way to work. I was a subject of fan attention unwillingly and that lead to an idea. What if I turned a new leaf in my life?”

People looked at each other and Bård and wondered what this announcement could contain.

Bård continued.

“What if I stopped containing this false image, throw away all my matching clothes and show the world the true me? From tomorrow on I’ve decided to be myself, a man who is tired of his life and loves comfort. In the morning I’ll put on my old sweats and the most comfortable shirt and show the world the finger, Lionsgate not included, because we got an invitation to come in for a talk in LA.”

The friends burst into laughter from his words. Bård was annoyed, he was perfectly serious and all they did was laugh. They also clapped at the Lionsgate news and totally ignored the comment about the old sweats.

 _This is surreal, even all my friends seem to think that all I say is a joke. My comedian image must be so deeply rooted in their minds that don’t get that this simply isn’t fun anymore._ Bård finished his glass of wine, the second of the night. He didn’t want any more and put his hand on top of his glass to let the waiter know he was done. After midnight the friends split up in different directions, Bård waved in a taxi and went home.

At daybreak he thought _Now is the moment I stop pretending._ He got up from the bed and walked to the wardrobe, ready to empty everything in a plastic bag he had gotten ready the previous night, expressively for that purpose. He put a hand on a blue shirt hanging on a coat hanger, ready to throw it away, but hesitated. _It brings out my eyes really well. I think I’ll leave it for a sec,_ he thought. But the same happened with every single piece of clothing and eventually the only things he threw away were the old sweats and t-shirt. _How exactly did this happen?_ he wondered. Absentmindedly he put on a cardigan, matching pants and finally threw on a warm jacket and a scarf. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and realised he liked what he saw. There was a handsome, well-proportioned, well-dressed man looking back at him. He shrugged and left for the only grocery store in the neighbourhood that was open on the New Year’s day. 

On the street a few fans came across him, they wanted pictures and autographs. Bård realised he had a genuine smile on his lips and had in fact enjoyed the attention. He walked on with a little smile onhis lips. When he got back home with his shopping, he realised he had enjoyed it all, the clothes, the fans, the attention. _Perhaps this is the new me, a comedian, who enjoys being himself?_ He thought about it and understood he had born to be a comedian, there was not a single thing he’d rather do. He loved all the attention and fame. He picked up a phone from his pocket to call the person closest to him, his brother. He heard laughter from the other end of the phone.

“I knew it the whole time. You just had to come to the conclusion yourself,” Vegard said. 


End file.
